Poudel elected NC PP leader
Nepali Congress parliamentary party has elected vice-president Ram Chandra Poudel as its leader, Saturday.
Poudel was elected the PP leader in the second round of elections that took place late Saturday night. Poudel secured 61 votes, while his opponent Sher Bahadur Deuba secured 48 votes.
Second round of elections was held as none of the four candidates emerged a clear winner in the first round of election held Saturday afternoon.
According to NC PP statute, a candidate must get more than 50 percent votes to be elected as the leader.
Earlier, in the first round of elections Deuba had secured 45 votes and Poudel had got 39 votes while two other candidates, general secretary Kul Bahadur Gurung and central leader Suprabha Ghimire had secured 12 votes each. 109 out of the total 114 lawmakers cast their votes for the parliamentary leader. A ballot paper was found blank.
Party president Girija Prasad Koirala, who had called for a consensus candidate, and four others didn't participate in the voting. Lawmakers Dr Ram Saran Mahat, Bal Dev Sharma Majgainya and Dr Shashank Koirala are out of town while Nilambar Acharya, a nominated lawmaker, 'boycotted' the election.
The party remained without a parliamentary leader for 14 months since the election of Constituent Assembly.
Meanwhile, the NC has unanimously chosen 10 members for the 17 -member Parliamentary Working Committee. The remaining leaders were chosen through election.
Those selected unanimously are: Ramesh Lekhak, Jagdish Narsingh K.C, Purusottam Basnet, Kiran Yadav, Amrit Lal Rajbansi, Ajay Kumar Charasiya, Badshah Kurmi, Kavita Sardar, Arjun Joshi and Nabindra Raj Joshi. nepalnews.com June 20 09
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